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Wendy Bacon

When the federal government needed advice on the terms of a $2 billion loan to the NSW government for its WestConnex tollway, it outsourced the advice to the private sector. With the increasing privatisation of public service, there was nothing unusual about that.

What was surprising is that the companies it chose were already heavily involved in working on WestConnex for the NSW government.

The NSW government wanted the $2 billion concessional loan for Westconnex Stage 2 and a massive interchange next to Sydney Park in St Peters.

Early one morning last month, the Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) Lucy Turnbull — a lifelong resident of the city’s most privileged suburbs along the south-eastern edge of the harbour — quietly slipped across to Sydney’s inner west where she was taken on tour by a WestConnex manager of the M4 East tollway tunnel corridor. There she presumably saw for the first time the gigantic construction sites in Haberfield where scores of heritage homes, businesses, gardens, parks and trees stood until a few weeks ago.

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In these days of growing media concentration, Green Left Weekly is a proudly independent voice committed to human and civil rights, global peace and environmental sustainability, democracy and equality. By printing the news and ideas the mainstream media won't, Green Left Weekly exposes the lies and distortions of the power brokers and helps us to better understand the world around us.